I skied awesome powder snow today with a great big group. There were five in my vehicle, we merged with seven more skiers, and later in day, three split-boarders arrived to ride some pow. In the backcountry 15 was very comfortable—we left fresh lines for the weekenders!

Rain has been the dominant precipitation in Fernie for the past month however above 5600 feet there is a one meter base. Polar Peak would be awesome to ski.

The snowpack has three rain crusts: Octobers, mid Novembers and this weeks 60cm dump had a mid rain cycle that formed another layer. Today we enjoyed the professional examination of the snowpack by Dave Tracz, CAA’s Southern Rockies Forecaster. Dave, along with Gord Ohm, generate the snow stability report for all backcountry users in the Southern Rockies. Today the snow had considerable hazard however we experienced no issues.

Dave commented that there are more sledders than skiers in these mountains and they appropriately access the terrain for their observations and reports with mountain sleds. Avalanche awareness for sledders has benefited all backcountry users as budgets now are much larger and forecasters like Dave and Gord are employed. Please support them this Winter by submitting your observations or incidents at www.avalanche.ca.

As polite and calm as we were there were signs of a powder frenzy. Why did Mitch always ski first? The winter will be long, we’ll all get to ski first one day!

Let’s hope is snows soon in Fernie!

(Click on images for a larger view)